Monday, September 14, 2015

Is Europe Losing Control Over Its Destiny?

The move by unelected
bureaucrats in Brussels to force European countries to throw open their
borders — and to require them to provide migrants with free clothing,
food, housing and healthcare for an indefinite period of time — not only
represents an audacious usurpation of national sovereignty, it is also
certain to encourage millions of additional migrants from the Muslim
world to begin making their way to Europe.

"We are not facing a refugee crisis, we are facing a migration
crisis... Let us not forget that those arriving have been raised in
another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of
them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question,
because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it
not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to
keep Europe Christian? If we lose sight of this, the idea of Europe
could become a minority interest in its own continent." — Prime Minister
Viktor Orbán of Hungary.

"[T]he continent is experiencing a mass movement of people not
seen since the aftermath of the Second World War. Unlike the end of the
war, however, none of the masses currently on the move is European...
The control over one's own borders is one of the most important
characteristics — and responsibilities — of a modern state. Countries
lose control over their destinies and even cease to exist when they lose
control over who gets in." — Arthur Chrenkoff, New York Observer.

Statistics show that of the 625,920 people who applied for asylum
in the European Union in 2014, only 29.5% were from Syria, Afghanistan
and Iraq.

"If you do not like it, just go away." — Czech Republic President
Milos Zeman, commenting that no one had invited migrants to his
country, but once they arrive, they should respect the rules of his
country or leave.

"The lesson for the United States is that reducing our global
influence does not increase international peace and security. Quite the
opposite. Obama's retreat from the Middle East, whether in the aftermath
of Libya, his disinterest in the Islamic State's continuing rise, or
his surrender to Iran's nuclear-weapons program, are all part of the
larger pattern." — Ambassador John R. Bolton, Fox News Opinion.

"Since Slovakia is a Christian country, we cannot tolerate an
influx of 300,000-400,000 Muslim immigrants who would like to start
building mosques all over our land and trying to change the nature,
culture and values ​​of the state.... If we do not start telling the
truth about migration, we will never move from this spot." — Prime
Minister Robert Fico, Slovakia.

The European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the
European Union, has unveiled a controversial plan that would compel EU
member countries to accept 160,000 migrants and refugees from the Middle
East and North Africa.
The move by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels to force European
countries to throw open their borders — and to require them to provide
migrants with free clothing, food, housing and healthcare for an
indefinite period of time — not only represents an audacious usurpation
of national sovereignty, it is also certain to encourage millions of
additional migrants from the Muslim world to begin making their way to
Europe.
The migration proposal, announced
on September 9, would "share" 120,000 migrants currently holed up in
Greece, Hungary and Italy with other countries in the European Union.
This number is in addition to previous demands by the European Commission that 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean migrants be relocated from Greece and Italy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door immigration policy
is partly responsible for fueling the rush of migrants to Europe, has
already warned
that the European Commission's plan is "merely a first step" and that
Europe may have to accept even bigger numbers. German Vice Chancellor
Sigmar Gabriel said that Germany could take 500,000 migrants annually for "several more years."

Welcome to Germany!
At left, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At right, some of the
hundreds of migrants who arrived in Munich on September 12, 2015.

It remains unclear just how many of the migrants arriving in Europe
are refugees fleeing warzones, and how many are economic migrants
seeking a better life in the West. Statistics show
that of the 625,920 people who applied for asylum in the European Union
in 2014, only 29.5% were from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
German officials have admitted
that 40% of the migrants arriving in the country in 2015 are from the
Balkans, including Albania, Kosovo and Serbia, which implies that at
least half of those arriving in Germany this year are economic migrants
fleeing poverty not war.
Critical observers are describing the migration chaos engulfing
Europe in apocalyptic terms: an "unstoppable demographic revolution," a
"total Armageddon scenario," and an "exodus of biblical proportions."
What follows is a selection of quotes and commentary from a variety
of political leaders and opinion-shapers in Europe and elsewhere about
the consequences of untrammeled immigration from the Muslim world.
In Britain, Nigel Farage, the leader of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), spoke to the BBC Radio 4's Today program. He said:

"The problem we've got is we've opened the door to an
exodus of biblical proportions meaning millions and millions of
refugees. We've lost sight of what it is to be a refugee. How many
millions does Europe want to take? That is the question.
"Genuine refugees have tended to be groups of people, ethnic groups
or religious groups who were directly under persecution and were fleeing
in fear of their lives. The problem we've got now if you look at the
definition of the EU's common asylum policy, it includes anyone fleeing
from a war-torn country, and it even includes people fleeing extreme
poverty."

"Nobody voted for illegal immigration. Plenty of people
voted to put us here to oppose it. The hundreds of thousands of illegal
immigrants overwhelming our borders and our capacities to cope are
exactly that — illegal.
"Let's be clear about another thing: despite what the human rights
industry and the massed ranks of taxpayer-funded charities and
lobby-groups repeat, this is not a refugee crisis but a massive crisis
of illegal immigration which must be resisted for what it is."

English author and journalist Peter Hitchens, in an essay titled, "We won't save refugees by destroying our own country," wrote:

"Actually we can't do what we like with this country. We
inherited it from our parents and grandparents and we have a duty to
hand it on to our children and grandchildren, preferably improved and
certainly undamaged. It is one of the heaviest responsibilities we will
ever have. We cannot just give it away to complete strangers on an
impulse because it makes us feel good about ourselves....
"Thanks to a thousand years of uninvaded peace, we have developed
astonishing levels of trust, safety and freedom.... I am amazed at how
relaxed we are about giving this away.
"Our advantages depend very much on our shared past, our inherited
traditions, habits and memories. Newcomers can learn them, but only if
they come in small enough numbers. Mass immigration means we adapt to
them, when they should be adapting to us....
"So now, on the basis of an emotional spasm, dressed up as
civilization and generosity, are we going to say that we abandon this
legacy and decline our obligation to pass it on, like the enfeebled,
wastrel heirs of an ancient inheritance letting the great house and the
estate go to ruin?
"I can see neither sense nor justice in allowing these things to
become a pretext for an unstoppable demographic revolution in which
Europe (including, alas, our islands) merges its culture and its economy
with North Africa and the Middle East. If we let this happen, Europe
would lose almost all the things that make others want to live there."

British MEP Daniel Hannon warned that Germany's open-door immigration policy was drawing ever more migrants to Europe. He wrote:

"The belief that Germany is relaxing its policy is bound
to lead to a level of migration that surpasses anything seen so far.
Refugees and economic migrants will be thrown together in a rush. Some
will be trampled, and some boats will be overturned. But many more will
reach Italy and Greece. Eventually, the front-line EU states will stop
trying to enforce the rules, and will simply wave new arrivals across
their territory, tempting even more into attempting the crossing."

The London-based Financial Timeslamented the lack of a unified European response to the migration crisis:

"This has been a miserable summer for European ideals.
From a bloc founded in the pursuit of peace have emerged frightful
images of refugees suffocating on motorway lay-bys, squalid makeshift
camps, lifeless toddlers washed ashore, burning asylum centers, serial
numbers penned on forearms, the sight of black-clad police pepper
spraying families fleeing war. Inundated with asylum seekers, yet
lacking the central functions to cope, Europe is divided over what to
do. Higher walls? Welcome mats? Is this a national problem or should the
burden be shared?

British political scientist Anthony Glees accused the German
government of rank hypocrisy for demanding that Greece comply with the
strict letter of EU law to obtain a financial bailout, but that same
German government unilaterally dispensed with EU law to open Europe's
borders wide open to hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Muslim
world. He said:

"Europe's tectonic plates will move if Germany behaves as
a hippie state, guided only by feelings. Prime Minister David Cameron
said, quite rightly, in my opinion, that the United Kingdom must act not
only with the heart, but also with the head. And the question in the UK
is that if Frau Merkel now pursues this policy, a very different policy
which it pursued vis-à-vis Greece, where will this end? The UK already
intervenes militarily in the fight against the so-called Islamic State.
Germany, however, has kept its distance from these things. But then at
the same time to say to desperate people in Syria and Iraq, please come
to the Federal Republic of Germany, many Britons view this as
nonsensical. This will have no end!
"I think it may be that Germany still has historical feelings that
are completely absent in Britain. It may be that in 2015, there are
still memories of what happened with refugees before the Second World
War (1938/1939). But in Britain, where we are currently not only
fighting terrorism, not only coping with the problem of economic
migrants, but also coping with the humanitarian problem, the German
approach seems sloppy and not properly thought through, especially when
it comes to Europe when the Germans do not abide by the rules. One may
think whatever they might about the Hungarian government, but the rules
are there, and if Germany does not comply with the rules, the entire
Union is in danger of falling apart.

In Brussels, the self-proclaimed capital of Europe, the
president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, insisted that
immigration from Muslim countries would be a solution to Europe's
demographic decline. He said:

"Let us not forget, we are an ageing continent in
demographic decline. We will be needing talent. Over time, migration
must change from a problem to be tackled to a well-managed resource. To
this end, the Commission will come forward with a well-designed legal
migration package in early 2016."

"Europe has made the mistake in the past of
distinguishing between Jews, Christians and Muslims. There is no
religion, no belief and no philosophy when it comes to refugees."

Although unemployment is rampant within the European Union, especially among young Europeans, Juncker said:

"I am strongly in favor of allowing asylum seekers to
work and earn their own money whilst their applications are being
processed. Labor, work, being in a job is a matter of dignity...so we
should do everything to change our national legislation in order to
allow refugees, migrants, to work since day one of their arrival in
Europe."

In the Czech Republic, President Milos Zeman said that no one
had invited migrants to his country, but once they arrive, they should
respect the rules of his country or leave. He said:

"If you do not like it, just go away. Someone may
consider it appealing to the worst instincts, but this is the same
stance that Hungarians share when they are building a fence against
Serbia, and Americans who have built a fence on its border with Mexico."

In Denmark, Andreas Kamm, the secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council (Dansk Flygtningehjælp), warned that the current refugee crisis could lead to total collapse of European society. In an interview with the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Kamm said he believes that Europe is facing "a total Armageddon scenario." He added:

"We are experiencing a historical imbalance between the
very high numbers of refugees and migrants and the global capacity to
provide them with protection and assistance. We are running the risk
that conflicts between the migrants and local populations will go awry
and escalate. The answer cannot be that Europe imports surplus
populations. We cannot be required to destroy our own society."

Danish Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said:
"I'm most indignant over the Arab countries who are rolling in money
and who only take very few refugees. Countries like Saudi Arabia. It's
completely scandalous."
In Germany, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, in an interview with Die Zeit, said:

"The migration crisis presents a formidable challenge. It
is bigger than any of us have previously thought — socially,
politically, economically, culturally.... Now we will get hundreds of
thousands of Muslims with an Arab background. According to what I am
told by my French colleague, this is a significant difference as far as
integration is concerned.... I am being told that between 15% and 20% of
the adult migrants are illiterate.
"We must get used to the idea that our country is changing. School,
police, housing, courts, health care, everywhere! We also need an
amendment to the constitution. And all this has to happen very quickly,
within weeks! This will require a huge change in our established way of
thinking."

In an interview with Politico, Josef Joffe, a normally astute Jewish-German intellectual who is the publisher of the newspaper Die Zeit,
seemed completely oblivious to the long-term consequences of importing
hundreds of thousands of Muslims to Germany, when he said:

"It is a true miracle. Our poster-boy refugee is now the
Syrian doctor who combines educational achievement with moral
obligation, given the unspeakable cruelty against civilians in the
Syrian war. Germany, like the countries of English settlement, is
turning into an Einwanderungsland, a country of immigration,
accepting different colors, faiths and origins. So Germany is evolving
into a kind of America, where you need not be born as American, but can
become one. It is a mental and emotional revolution."

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned of the
"explosive consequences" of culture clash between Europe and migrants
from the Muslim world. In a September 3 essay published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Orbán wrote:

"To understand what we must do, we need to grasp the true
nature of the situation we are facing. Europe is not in the grip of a
'refugee problem' or a 'refugee situation,' but the European continent
is threatened by an ever mounting wave of modern-era migration. Movement
of people is taking place on an immense scale, and from a European
perspective the number of potential future immigrants seems limitless.
"With each passing day we see that hundreds of thousands have been
turning up and clamoring at our borders, and there are millions more
intending to set out for Europe, driven by economic motives....
"We must acknowledge that the European Union's misguided immigration
policy is responsible for this situation. Irresponsibility is the mark
of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life
to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk
their lives in setting out for Europe. If Europe does not return to the
path of common sense, it will find itself laid low in a battle for its
fate....
"Let us not forget that those arriving have been raised in another
religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are
not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because
Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it not
worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep
Europe Christian? If we lose sight of this, the idea of Europe could
become a minority interest in its own continent."

Referring to Hungary's occupation by the Ottoman Empire from 1541 to 1699, Orbán said:

"I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a
large number of Muslim people in our country. We do not like the
consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see
in other countries and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force
us to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want to
see. That is a historical experience for us."

According to Zoltán Kovács, a spokesman for Hungary's center-right
government, the EU's response to the crisis has been a complete failure.
He said:

"The EU does not differentiate between those who are in
real need of help. Genuine refugees are pushed together with economic
migrants. We are not facing a refugee crisis, we are facing a migration
crisis. People are coming here from a hundred countries around the
world. It is completely unacceptable that illegal means of movement are
now institutionalized."

In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico said that 95% of so-called refugees were actually economic migrants:

"We won't assist in this folly with arms opened wide with
the notion that we'll accept them all regardless of whether they're
economic migrants or not. If we do not start telling the truth about
migration, we will never move from this spot."

Fico also warned of the consequences of untrammeled Muslim immigration. He said:

"Since Slovakia is a Christian country, we cannot
tolerate an influx of 300,000-400,000 Muslim immigrants who would like
to start building mosques all over our land and trying to change the
nature, culture and values ​​of the state."

In the United States, Ambassador John Bolton warned that Europe's migration crisis is America's problem too. He wrote:

"While Americans may believe that Europe, long disdainful
of our own intense debate over border-security problems, is getting
what it deserves, we should nonetheless focus on both the potential
threats and lessons applicable to us.
"One critical cause of Europe's illegal-immigration spike is the
growing chaos across the greater Middle East. This spreading anarchy
derives, in substantial part, from Barack Obama's deliberate policy of
'leading from behind' by reducing U.S. attention to and involvement in
the region. When America's presence diminishes anywhere in the world,
whatever minimal order and stability existed there can rapidly
evaporate....
"For years, the central cause of population movements into Europe was
economic: North Africans crossed the narrow Strait of Gibraltar or
headed to France or Italy. Turks and Arabs entered through Greece and
Eastern Europe. Once into the European Union, thanks to the Schengen
Agreement, travel barriers are now almost nonexistent, and, as in the
United States, illegal aliens can essentially travel freely....
"Spreading terrorism, armed conflict and collapsing political
authority in the Middle East are now powerful causal factors equaling or
exceeding continuing economic disparities. Europe fears being
overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people on the move, thereby losing
control over decisions on who to admit and who to turn away. These
concerns are legitimate, but there are deeper risks as well. Mirroring
worries in Washington, there is a serious and rising Islamicist
terrorist threat hidden within the tides of people seeking refuge.
"The lesson for the United States is that reducing our global
influence does not increase international peace and security. Quite the
opposite. Obama's retreat from the Middle East, whether in the aftermath
of Libya, his disinterest in the Islamic State's continuing rise, or
his surrender to Iran's nuclear-weapons program, are all part of the
larger pattern. Europe's illegal immigration problem is our problem as
well."

"As an unseasonably hot European summer gives way to
autumn, the continent is experiencing a mass movement of people not seen
since the aftermath of the Second World War. Unlike the end of the war,
however, none of the masses currently on the move is European. As
hundreds of thousands of people continue to arrive on Europe's doorsteps
and throng her roads and railway lines, many conservative commentators
see a more apt, and more ominous, historical parallel in the Völkerwanderung
or 'wanderings of the peoples' that foreshadowed the fall of the Roman
Empire some sixteen centuries ago. Europeans have long historical
memories....
"As we reflect on the vivid media images of boats and trains
overflowing with desperate humanity, it is important to keep in mind two
points: 1) The majority of the 350,000-400,000 immigrants who have
arrived in Europe so far this year (these are the known numbers; no one
knows how many enter undetected) are not Syrians. In fact, less than a
third are, with the rest originating in a miscellany of African, Middle
Eastern and South Asian countries. 2) The majority seem to be single,
healthy-looking young men, which traditionally suggests economic motives
for migration, rather than the fear of death or persecution.
"What is happening in Europe at the moment is not so much, or at
least not predominantly, a refugee crisis but a crisis of European
immigration policies.

Chrenkoff summed it up this way:

"The control over one's own borders is one of the most
important characteristics — and responsibilities — of a modern state.
Countries lose control over their destinies and even cease to exist when
they lose control over who gets in."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-basedGatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group.

This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.